Let’s start with this example: I want to try Mexican street corn because I think I’d like it, and it’d be safe if my first experience were at the hands of someone who was great with authentic Mexican food. I once had Panera “Mexican Street Corn soup”, which certainly doesn’t count, and I thought that if that went well, I could later get my hands on an authentic recipe and it try making street corn myself. These are just ideas, though, about which I’ve procrastinated for a while out of fear – a dislike of mayonnaise, of Miracle Whip, and a fear of failing at my own first attempt at the dish.
I wrote all of that in past tense because that version of me isn’t here, writing this essay. I’ve been messing around with recipes for food and alcoholic drinks and smoothies for some years now, having matured some and embraced the fact that cooking is great for me and needs to happen a lot. It boosts my self-confidence and serves as a way for me to pour positive intention into someone I care about. For example, there was a time when I would often make salads in advance for my father to have in his office. His firm request was for me to keep them quite simple, but I got to use energy work as I made them, infusing the ingredients with patience, love and respect.
Are you one of those people for whom food is part of caring for someone else, showing them how you feel? Do you sometimes or often intend to infuse dinner with appreciation, or dessert with joy and fondness? Every meal that my mother makes for a holiday dinner curated with multiple courses that feature her self-belief in general, her ease with flavor and measurements, and once in a while, she brought playfulness, too, in a cake containing real lavender, or the time when, for someone’s summer birthday, she surprised the family with a dessert she hadn’t made in decades: dirt! That evening involved a lot of playfulness among people who were all well above 25 years old.
Someday, I’m going to be in a marriage where cooking isn’t handled by just one of us, and when it’s my responsibility, I hope that I often remember to honor the meal and my spouse, adding strong intention to the ingredients. My partner will know that I’m doing it, and perhaps catch me doing energy work when packing a lunch box for our child, or when prepping her birthday cupcakes.
Overall, I
dislike mayo (with dairy, the only kind I've ever known), and it’s childish to hold back from trying a dish just because
one of its base ingredients is something you think is icky, since, in my current
state of ignorance about Mexican food in general, I assume that I could replace
an ingredient that includes dairy with one that’s healthier and not detract greatly
from the flavor.
Over time, I address that ignorant avoidance with food. I’m one of many who has dragged that with them from childhood. I was (or have been? I need outside opinions on that one) stubbornly, annoyingly picky about cheese, and breaking out of that has been slow, but recently, I made oatmeal for the first time as part of increasing variety and eating a lot healthier. Childhood me once tasted the stuff and decided that it was too bland, period, full stop. Well, in one week, I’ve eaten it twice with fruit, one of those bowls containing coffee. I’m planning to experiment with different recipes that you can find all over social media, said to be healthy ways to eat chocolate for breakfast.
I haven’t made eggplant parmesan before, and it’s a favorite of one of Mom's, and she was a big help last month with the making of a Lebanese lentil soup, so I’ll be trying that sometime after I tackle the idea of a veg-only stroganoff, different kinds of homemade vegetarian pizza, Indian apricot chicken, "glossy roasted cauliflower pasta", etc. At one point around 2017, I was determined to make black pepper chicken myself, and discovering that I’d finished and succeeded – was an empowering moment! In that same apartment, in one night, I made two different kinds of pasta sauce, and although they were both simple, the important thing was understanding how and doing a three-minute victory dance, some disco or house music filling the space.
One of my dreams is to try some foods from different cultures, to be familiar with many more, and apply my expanded palette when traveling rather than bore myself when dining out in South America, Europe, Africa or Australia. I also wouldn’t want to spend years as a bland cook in my own family, getting by with minimal confidence, instilling unhealthy eating habits in my own child. I have so many recipes saved, and it's time to take on a number of them in the span of, maybe two months instead of procrastinating. Let’s instead look at this as a journey through tasty challenges. Increasing skills, including the one of patience, boosting self-belief, spending truly quality time alone, enjoying the atmosphere I’ve created, singing along to something as I do dishes and clean…I love how it feels. And I get to go back into the kitchen tomorrow.
